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3 Answers
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You need a delegation tool. What versions of Windows Server/Exchange are you using? Something like Directory Update or Directory Manager would work for this if you only need a subset of users to have the ability to edit entries for the organization.

There are a number of tools avaiable, but none of them work without you first using delegation of control, which you appear to be lacking an understanding of. Here's an old article that explains it pretty nicely. The concept is the same whether your domain is W2K, W2K3, or W2K8.

While it's true those are admin tools, if HR wants to do it in batch jobs, like say for seasonal hires or students at a school or similar situations, you could set up a script that populates AD from info in a csv. I've written such scripts in the past to clean up old contact info in an inherited AD. If that's what you are looking for let me know, I see if I can dig up that script for you.
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JamesBarnettDec 27 '10 at 15:25